The United States and Israel have earned the right to say they hurt Iran. They have not earned the right to say they changed it.
That distinction is now in danger of disappearing.
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The recent campaign against Iran produced real gains. Iran’s nuclear program was set back. Military infrastructure was damaged. Senior figures in its command structure were killed or taken off the battlefield. These were not symbolic blows. They reflected courage, intelligence, military skill, and political will.
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President Donald Trump deserves credit for that. So does Israel.
But a tactical success is not regime change. A damaged facility is not a transformed state. A dead commander is not a dead ideology.
Washington has always had a weakness for clean endings in the Middle East: the strike, the announcement, the deal, the clock, the victory lap. American politics wants closure. The region rarely provides it.
Israelis know this because they cannot simply change the subject. They live next door to the consequences of Western optimism. For them, Iran is not an abstract foreign policy problem. It is rockets from proxies, tunnels dug for terrorists, missiles launched by the regime, and a nuclear program built under layers of deception.
That is why Israeli skepticism should be taken seriously. A recent Hebrew University poll reportedly found that an overwhelming majority of Israelis believed Iran had emerged ahead after the war and the subsequent agreement with the U.S. One can dispute that conclusion, but not the instinct behind it. Israelis are asking the question that matters: Was Iran defeated, or merely delayed?
Delay is exactly what Tehran knows how to use.
Iran’s regime has spent decades turning time into strategy. It signs when useful, stalls when pressured, hides when exposed, and escalates when the world loses focus. Nuclear commitments have too often functioned not as conversions, but as instruments of survival. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s long-running disputes with Tehran over safeguards and undeclared nuclear material are not minor technicalities. They are clues to the regime’s character.
And that character has not changed.
This is why the Hydra metaphor fits. Cut off one head, and another grows if the body remains alive. Iran can replace commanders. It can rebuild networks. It can shift assets, pressure inspectors, and lean again on Hezbollah, militias, front companies, smugglers, and sympathetic diplomats. It can absorb humiliation if survival gives it another chance.
A wounded Hydra is weaker. It is not harmless.
The mistake would be to confuse force with finality. The U.S. and Israel showed that Iran is vulnerable. That matters. It gives Washington leverage and reminds Tehran that distance, bluster, and proxy warfare do not guarantee immunity. But leverage only matters if it is used. A strike that creates pressure can become a wasted opportunity if the pressure is traded too quickly for applause.
Regime change is not a slogan. It means the ruling system’s nature has changed: its incentives, ambitions, methods, and willingness to wage war through terrorism and nuclear blackmail. By that standard, there has been no regime change in Iran.
The clerical system remains. The revolutionary project remains. The hatred of Israel remains. The habit of deception remains. The proxy strategy remains. The central calculation remains as well: survive the crisis, outlast the West, and resume the mission when the temperature drops.
There is nothing ungrateful about saying this. Israel benefited from American power. Israel needed American partnership. The joint U.S.-Israeli effort achieved what diplomacy alone had failed to achieve.
But gratitude does not require pretending the beast is dead.
The United States can declare victory and pivot. Israel cannot. Israel is the country Iran threatens to erase. Israel is the country surrounded by Iran’s clients. Israel is the country that will pay first if Washington mistakes damage for defeat.
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Trump should take credit for what was achieved. Israel should, too. But neither Washington nor its allies should confuse a pause with peace.
Iran’s regime is a wounded Hydra. And if America forgets that while Israel can still hear it breathing, the next confrontation will not be a surprise. It will be the predictable result of declaring victory too soon.
Arie Blitz, MD, MBA, is a physician and independent writer in Weslaco, Texas, who writes on foreign policy, Israel, medical ethics, and biotechnology regulation.
